"Darcy didn't have a bear in his head telling him he was a wastrel."
Briana's eyes popped. "Oh no. Your bear didn't."
"Oh, yeah, it did. To be fair, it was kind of the last in a long line of people to say so, but it's hard to ignore the animal part of your soul."
That was certainly true, though Briana's goat eyed her again.You would not bother with a permanent mate if you listened tome.
I'm not a full-time mountain goat,she pointed out to it, and it sighed hugely, indicating that staying human most of the time was Briana's personal loss. She smiled, both at her goat and Laurie, then sighed and stretched before getting to her feet. "All right. The day isn't getting any younger, and I'm hungry."
Wecould eat anything around here,her goat said, not so much patiently as with the weary tolerance of a parent who had been fielding unreasonable requests all day.
"Yes," Briana said aloud, "but Laurie couldn't. It's not berry season yet."
Ugh. Bears.Her goat rolled its eyes and Briana grinned, offering Laurie a hand up.
He stood, glancing around, and guessed, "You can eat anything around here?"
"Yes, but don't tell my goat I like pancakes better than bitter leaves."
I heard that!
"Your secret is safe with me," Laurie crossed his heart. "So Larry's Diner? They do all day pancakes."
Briana's stomach rumbled loudly enough for even Laurie to hear, and they both stared at it before she laughed. "I'd say that sounds good, yeah. I'd race you down the mountain, but we both know I'd win."
"Not necessarily!" Laurie fell in beside her, although Briana jerked her thumb toward the viewpoint they'd just left.
"Yes, I would, because I'd go down that way, and you'd kill yourself if you tried that."
Laurie stopped, went back, looked down the rock face, and shuddered so hard Briana thought his skin might fly off. "That's like an eighty-nine degree angle there."
"Nah, more like seventy degrees," Briana replied airily. "Easy peasy."
"Oh my god," Laurie said as he caught up with her again. "How is my mate the competitive, arrogant one whenI'min the relationship?"
Briana's laughter echoed off the mountain as they made their way down the trail, and they drove their separate vehicles to the diner, ordering mid-afternoon breakfast and catching up on incoming messages now that they were back within a phone coverage zone. Briana only had a couple; Laurie had dozens, and his eyes were wide as he looked up from them when their food arrived. "I'm not sure I know what I've gotten myself into with volunteering for the Faire council. Even my family doesn't text this much."
"The council probably doesn't either when there hasn't been a disaster."
"Yeah." Laurie put his phone down and rubbed his eyes. "Want to know the other minor disaster this has all caused? In the grand scheme of things, it's nothing, but Jon and Alis were going to get married at the end of Faire this year. They thought it would be a nice way to bring it full circle."
"Oh! Oh, no, I didn't know that. Oh, man. That's…" Briana shook her head. Laurie was right. In the bigger picture, it wasn't much. But the romance between the mysterious Black Knight and the local minstrel-and-brewster had set the Faire on fire last year, and everyone had been invested in their story. A wedding at the Faire would have been perfect. "What are they going to do?"
"I don't know. I don't think they know yet. Just like everybody and everything else." Laurie shook his head.
Briana snaked a hand across the table to cover his for a moment. "We'll get it figured out. It's only been a few days, and we're all running on stress and exhaustion. Worst case scenariothey wait to get married until the Faire is back up on its feet, right? And the best-case is, I don't know. Your pub has those huge beer gardens. Invite the Faire employees to the wedding there. We could do it up like a mini-Faire."
"That actually isn't a bad idea, maybe just in general. I mean, Ashley would actually murder me. String me up by my toes and pull me apart murder me, for volunteering the beer gardens as fairgrounds. But it also almost might be worth talking to her about," Laurie said slowly. "We've got all the permissions for food and alcohol sales, and wehaveextended the beer gardens over the past year. We had to, after the Sixty Pix stuff."
"Even I went to that," Briana said with a little grin. "Seeing them live three nights in a row? It was worth the risk of running into you."
"I'm never going to live that down, am I," Laurie said with a groan, but he also smiled. "They were something, weren't they? And we had hundreds of people there. Not as many as come to the Faire, but…" He was starting to brighten, hope infusing him in a way that Briana hadn't seen before. As if he hadn't been gorgeous enough, she thought helplessly. He was sobeautiful, lighting up with enthusiasm and eagerness. She couldn't believe she'd resisted meeting him for twoyears. He caught her fingers in hers and beamed at her. "I'll have to talk to Ashley. Maybe we can rescue something of the Faire this year after all."
An odd and overwhelming sense of pride stung Briana's eyes and nose. She smiled at Laurie, then, trying to sound firm, said, "Afterbreakfast."
Laurie laughed quietly, kissed her knuckles, and murmured, "As you wish."
Chapter 24
